"Don't Doubt Owen's Loyalty To Toon"

Last updated : 13 March 2006 By Footy Mad - Editor

Obviously he is desperate to make the England squad for this summer's World Cup Finals but the Toon fans want to see some return on the £17million the club paid for him.

Roeder: "You hear rumblings around the place that he's more interested in playing for England than Newcastle. Well, that's rubbish, absolute rubbish. Michael cannot wait to get back in the black and white shirt and do his stuff for us, which is scoring goals.

"Thereafter, of course he knows there's the World Cup in the summer, and having been to one myself in France 98, it's the most wonderful tournament to be involved in and he should rightly be excited about the World Cup. But he knows first things first, and that's playing for Newcastle again.

"First of all, he hasn't suffered a setback. I don't know where that rumour came from. We are now in a different era from the bucket of water and cold sponge treatment of injuries. From the moment he got injured, we had a programme mapped out for him. In that programme, he has scans and X-rays along the way and Monday was one of those that has always been mapped out.

"We feel we know where Michael is at the moment in terms of when he will make a comeback - you can be that accurate nowadays - so it's probably unlikely that he'll make the Chelsea game. But nevertheless, I think he's going to be fit to play plenty of games for Newcastle this season before he moves on to the World Cup.

"He's almost the perfect professional. He does everything correctly and on top of that, he's got the ability to be one of the best strikers in the world.
I have worked with him before - whether I'm still in this job to work with him again, I don't know yet, but he's well on his way to recovery."